Independent Senator Bernie Sanders floated Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a potential presidential candidate in the 2028 elections, saying that even though it’s “her decision to make,” she is a “very, very good politician.”
Speaking to Axios, Sanders said that he has been “out on the streets with her” and noticed how she responds when people come up to her. “It’s so incredibly genuine and open.”
Ocasio-Cortez is seemingly positioning herself to run for higher office, whether it is challenging Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for his seat or to make a run for president.
I don’t think it’s a matter of her being ready, I think it’s that she has a real chance of beating schumer, whereas with the presidency, I’m not even sure she could even manage to win the primary. If an old white dude like Bernie couldn’t beat Hilary and Biden, what chance does a Latina woman in her 30s have?
If Mamdani is an indication of anything, people will vote for leftist economic populism despite there being racial divides.
In the past few weeks and months, we saw in New York City that the majority of Jewish people still support Israel over Palestine. Yet, Mamdani has consistently pulled a plurality of Jewish support with double digit leads over the other candidates.
What this means is that Jewish people are just like any other American, and they are feeling the effects of this shit economy caused by Trump. Mamdani represents a bandaid to that more than the other candidates, so they’re going with that and ignoring Mamdani’s anti-Zionist and anti-Israel policy.
I don’t think it matters what candidate you push a campaign for if they run on Left populism. As we’ve seen with Platner in Maine, though, being a white male veteran doesn’t hurt either.
Mamdani is running for mayor of NYC.
NYC has had a majority (not a plurality) of votes go to Democrats in the presidential election back to 1952 and the last time republicans had a plurality was 1924. NYC is, sadly, not representative of the US as a whole. Also, he was going up against a man who may have surpassed ted cruz in terms of “unlikeable mother fucker”-ness
Platner is… a giant fucking mess. He has more red flags than fucking fetterman did (fun fact: He was batshit insane as far back as when he met Anthony Bourdain…), one of which being the nazi skull tattoo he had on his chest for 20 years and only removed once he was forced to during his, what, 3 months of a political career? Not to mention him having willingly joined Blackwater and his VERY questionable statements on sexual assault and his use of homophobic slurs as recently as 2020.
But, he kissed Sanders’s ring so he has the “socialist” vote and establishment Democrats support him for whatever reason (which should raise a LOT more red flags but…). And while I am not invested enough to personally verify, a few colleagues I have out in Maine insist that Smith-Rodriguez was basically the same platform but with actual details and action plans but eventually pulled out to support the mayor (?) on the grounds of platner’s horrific stances on sexual assualt and her being a victim of assault in the military.
Editorialized that a bit but… I think that is the real key. The vast majority of people don’t actually care about policy or even basic human rights. They just want populist candidates. And that is not just limited to the US.
Which REALLY fucking sucks because… I’ve been incredibly critical of AOC’s career and I think she was THIS close to wearing clown shoes with the rest of The Squad. But she has demonstrated that she has strong political acumen. And when she does do shitty stuff, she actually owns up to it on social media/direct to constituents videos.There is always the need for MASSIVE grains of salt with any politician but… AOC seems to kind of be exactly what we should want out of a democracy. Someone who cares and has grand ambitions but also understands they are a servant of the people and speaks to The People.
She just was born too late considering both sides are very much at “I can excuse being a Nazi but I draw the line at… I’ll get back to you on that”
Honestly, I think she has a great chance. People didn’t not vote for Hillary because she was a woman. It’s because she represented the establishment and inspired nobody. People didn’t not vote for Harris because she was a woman. It’s because she represented the establishment and inspired nobody.
AOC is a candidate who seems to actually represent change. She seems to listen to the desires of the people and follow that. She doesn’t just do what the donors demand. She has a chance because she does inspire people to see what could be, not just to repeat what is.
So then why did anyone vote for Biden, who represented the establishment and inspired nobody?
I’m not a political analyst, but my guess would be hope that he would be better. He proved that he wasn’t, which allowed Trump to come back because, despite everything, Trump did make promises to change things for regular people. Yes, they were lies, fear mongering, and about attacking a made up enemy, but he at least said something to make people think he would help them.
Because it was 2020 during the height of a botched Covid response and a few months after George Floyd. And Biden barely won. If you do the math, it was about 21,500 people across three states that determined the outcome, where them voting for Trump instead of Biden would have been an electoral tie that would have been decided by Pence. That’s a technical margin of 0.012% that Trump electorally lost by.
Because Biden was representing the establishment when they weren’t in power and the Republicans were actively blowing it. And he did a lot worse than he should have. That shouldn’t have been a squeaker election.
I mean, if you completely ignore the DNC doing everything legally in their power to get in the way of Bernie and force feed Hilary in the first place… because they can’t allow anyone vocal about actual progressive ideas in a position of party power… yeah that’s what it looks like. But that’s a pretty big thing to just ignore.
I’m not ignoring that, that’s one of the massive hurdles she would have to overcome
AOC will need to clear the DNC hurdle whether she runs for House, Senate, or Admin. Look at Platner
Not legally. The head of the DNC had to resign, and their lawyers argued in court that because they were a private organization they didn’t have to follow their own rules.
No one was prosecuted so it was effectively deemed legal. That’s the end result.
So let her try to win the primary. If she doesn’t win, what difference would it make?
Bernie’s problem was that he wasn’t a democrat. I voted for him but I know a lot of people, like my parents, who are center-left who simply refused to vote for somebody who didn’t caucus with democrats. These are the same people who are already looking at people like Newsom.
Edit for clarification: I understand that the Bernie is considered to caucus with the democrats because he generally votes with them. However, those who used the term disparagingly as I referenced above don’t believe independents can caucus with any party and used that as an excuse to refer to him as a DINO and not caucusing or being required to caucus.
Your parents aren’t “center-left” if they didn’t vote for Bernie.